


Hardcore Parkour

by vextant



Series: Happy Steve Bingo 2018 Fills [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Gen, Happy Steve Bingo, Minor YouTube Celebrity, Parkour, YouTube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 13:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16641041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vextant/pseuds/vextant
Summary: Steve is recognized from the stupid parkour videos he and his friends post online under the username Captain America. He's never been recognized before. That's kind of what the mask was for.—A fill for the prompt "Minor YouTube Celebrity" for the Happy Steve Bingo 2018.





	Hardcore Parkour

 

“Holy shit, you’re _Captain America_.”

It’s so unexpected that Steve fumbles getting his card out of his wallet in the grocery checkout. He just needed some milk. And there were mangoes on sale — he saw a kitchen video on facebook the other day about how to cut them properly, so now he has three chances before the next sale on almost-bad produce.

The cashier is still staring at him. He’s only a couple years younger, lanky with his skater boy haircut tamped down by his too-big Big Box Store uniform cap.

Steve finally slides the right card out of his wallet and manages a strangled-sounding, “What?”

The cashiers’ nametag says “Susan”, but Steve’s pretty sure that’s not actually his name. He’s babbling on as he scans items — _why_ did Steve pick _today_ to stock up on everything? “The parkour guy. Right? On YouTube. Man, I knew you were from around here, I just never thought I’d recognize you without the costume. But, I mean, looking at you, the shoulder-waist ratio is kind of obvious. I mean, you _are_ him though, right?”

“Uh.” Steve can feel the eyes of the people behind him in line, trying to judge the situation. _Why is this nobody holding up the line? Is he some kind of celebrity? Should I know who he is? If_ **_I_ ** _don’t recognize him, then he’s probably not_ **_that_ ** _famous, right?_ “Yeah, yeah that’s me.”

“Sweet, dude! Keep doin’ what you’re doin’.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, and it’s $18.54. On the card?”

“Yeah.”

The chip reader takes _so long_ it makes every second tick by extra slowly in his head. Steve feels like Ebenezer Scrooge, counting clock chimes. Except it’s not his doom that’s coming, it’s freedom from this conversation.

Behind him is somebody’s grandmother, squinting at him like she’s trying to imagine what Turner Classic Movie she’s seen him in. He’s been told before that he looks a bit like Guy Madison, and honestly he’d take being mistaken for a midcentury heartthrob over being recognized from those stupid Cap videos any day. He really only still does those for pocket cash. And also it’s really the only time he still sees Sam and Buck.

It’s really a nice system they got going, though. What started out as three college kids messing around on Vine with only the concrete jungle and an old Frisbee to entertain themselves is now a bona fide Verified YouTube Channel with about a hundred thousand subscribers. Steve’s very grateful that so many people sit through ads to watch him and Sam flip off of buildings while Buck runs after them with a camera. They all paid off college that way: Sam’s going to grad school now, for social work; Bucky’s well on his way to getting into the DGA. Their videos went from twice a week to one every month or so.

“Alright, man, you want a receipt?”

Steve breathes in a huge sigh of relief. “No thanks, I’m good.”

He finishes cramming his groceries into his tote — and he can feel when he squishes the bread on accident, whoops. But he just can’t get away from this awkward situation fast enough.

Steve’s never been recognized before. None of them have. That was the _point_ of Cap — they put on a stupid costume, do stupid shit that’s borderline illegal re: trespassing and reckless endangerment, and go out and live their normal lives. The Cap costumes are supposed to be ridiculous, bright and spangly and eye-catching for longer shots where Bucky can’t follow as well while still keeping steady. Even when Sam abandoned the Falcon name and took up as a second Cap — their channel is technically called Captains America now, and boy was _that_ a stormy day in the comments — the point was that anything identifying could be covered. There’s a couple bits where Bucky’s even wearing Steve’s suit, running around pretending to be Steve, and no one really seemed to notice.

They were supposed to be anonymous. Relatively — Steve knows that nothing on the internet is ever really _private_ or _secret_ . But now the cashier, Susan, he _knows_ . That little old lady knows too, even if she might not exactly be with-it on what parkour actually is. Hell, the whole _grocery store_ probably knows, Steve fumbled and stammered enough through the whole conversation.

He makes his way back to his bike and loads up the saddlebags.

Oh God, if Fury finds out, everybody at the gym is going to know — _Natasha’s_ going to know, and her teasing is already relentless — and he’s going to get fired. Again, semi-legal things. Probably not a good look for a personal trainer. He’ll definitely be fired, and then he’s have no choice but to put _more_ time into Cap just to pay his rent. Maybe Fury’ll get the channel shut down — he’s just a gym owner in Washington Heights, but somehow Steve thinks he’d be able to pull something like that off — and once Cap is shut down, Steve’ll have to find a _new_ stupid costume and a _new_ stupid name. Maybe he’ll just go all in, wear a cape. Go shirtless, or as close as he can since YouTube doesn’t believe in nipples. Call himself Vigilante or Outlaw or something else sneaky.

He has a video to shoot tonight. For once, the whole gang’s back together and it’s not just two of them running around. Supposedly, Bucky’s found some kind of old condemned office building where the entire top floor was just locked away and left in like, the 90s. They’re going to go in there and tear through it. Steve thinks that if they can find the studs, he’ll be able to charge right through the drywall. Sam just wants to chuck their frisbee at a computer screen a see what happens — the frisbee’s metal now, painted in red, white, and blue like the rest of everything, it just lasts longer than the plastic ones. He’ll bring up the cashier, see what Bucky and Sam think.

Maybe they’ll do some kind of reveal? Own up to it? That seems like the responsible thing. Knowing Sam’s knack for social media they could frame it as a whole Thing. He’d probably have a hashtag trending in minutes.

Whatever they end up deciding, Steve’s not sure if he’s willing to let Cap go that easy. Sure, it’s not his whole life anymore, but it was for a long time and it’s still a big part of it. A not-so-small part of him like the recognition, too. Like yeah, he has put years of his life into this; Cap helped him find his friends, helped him on the path to a career that he loves with coworkers he deeply respects. Cap projects make him happy, challenge him physically and intellectually. He’s forced to think fast, to improvise, to know his own limits and work hard to raise them. Thinking about it, he honestly doesn’t know if he’d be the same person if he’d never put on those itchy, hideous blue tights. Bucky and him would’ve probably gone separate ways a long time ago; and Steve certainly never would’ve met Sam.

So yeah, maybe it’s a good thing after all.

**Author's Note:**

> > Thanks to layersofsilence for helping me with the Hunt for a Midcentury Heartthrob that Steve could conceivably be mistaken for.  
> > The "DGA" that Bucky's working on getting into is the Director's Guild of America. He's gonna make movies someday.
> 
> The accompanying tumblr post to this fic can be found [here](https://vextant.tumblr.com/post/180177667276/hardcore-parkour). :D
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
